Musical improvisation, melodic and harmonious sound, rhythm are the main characteristic features of the jazz style. As a result, jazz is easy to distinguish from any other music.
What is jazz
Jazz - a direction in music, characterized by a combination of rhythm and melody. A separate feature of jazz is improvisation. The musical direction gained its popularity due to the unusual sound and a combination of several completely different cultures.
The history of jazz began at the beginning of the 20th century in the USA. In New Orleans, traditional jazz has formed. Subsequently, in many other cities, new varieties of jazz began to emerge. Despite all the variety of sounds of different styles, jazz music can be immediately distinguished from another genre due to its characteristic features.
Improvisation
Musical improvisation is one of the main features in jazz, which is present in all its varieties. Artists create music spontaneously, never think it over in advance, or rehearse. To play jazz and improvise, experience and skill in this field of music making are required. In addition, the jazz player must remember the rhythm and tonality. Of no small importance are the relations between the musicians in the group, because the success of the received melody depends on understanding each other's moods.
Improvisation in jazz allows you to create something new every time. The sound of music depends only on the inspiration of the musician at the time of the game.
It cannot be said that if there is no improvisation in a performance, then this is no longer jazz. This kind of playing music went to jazz from African peoples. Since the Africans did not have a clue about notes and rehearsals, music was transmitted to each other only by memorizing its melodies and themes. And each new musician could already play the same music in a new way.
Rhythm and melody
The second important feature of jazz style is the rhythm. Musicians have the ability to spontaneously create sound, as the constant ripple creates the effect of liveliness, play, excitement. The rhythm also limits improvisation, requiring the extraction of sounds according to a given rhythm.
Like improvisation, rhythm came to jazz from African cultures. But precisely this feature is the main characteristic of the musical trend. The first performers of free jazz completely abandoned the rhythm in order to be absolutely free in creating music. Because of this, a new trend in jazz has not been recognized for a long time. The rhythm is provided by percussion instruments.
From European culture, jazz got the melody of music. It is the combination of rhythm and improvisation with harmonious and soft music that gives jazz an unusual sound.
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